Ramanuja and Schleiermacher

Toward a Constructive Comparative Theology

Sydnor

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781498275088
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Can the comparison of two theologians vastly separated in space and time help contemporary theologians to think better? This book argues that it can. Specifically, this book argues that the novel and burgeoning discipline of comparative theology is a powerful method for gaining critical insight into our inherited worldviews. More important, it argues that the critical insights gained through comparison can produce constructive theology or, in other words, revised and renewed worldviews. New comparisons produce new questions, and new questions produce new answers. In order to demonstrate the power of this process, the book compares two preeminent theologians, Sri Ramanuja of the Hindu tradition and Friedrich Schleiermacher of the Christian tradition. Each argues that God sustains the universe at every moment of its existence, but they work out the divine sustenance in very different ways. By comparing their description of God's continual preservation of the universe, this book asks original, unfamiliar questions of each. Then, it speculatively suggests possible answers to those questions, inviting Ramanuja and Schleiermacher to respond to the challenges raised. This method demonstrates the incisive power of comparative theology to generate critical tension, as well as the creative power of comparative theology to resolve that very tension.

1

Ramanuja and Schleiermacher

Whichever devotee seeks to worship with faith whatever form of Mine, such as Indra, although not knowing these divinities to be My forms, I consider his faith as being directed to My bodies or manifestations, and make his faith steadfast, i.e., make it free from obstacles.1

It would be hard to find any person in whom one would not recognize any religious state of mind and heart whatsoever as being to a certain degree similar to one’s own and whom one would discern to be completely incapable of stirring or being stirred by oneself.2

Introduction

Beginnings

In the fall of 2003 I was blessed to study two theologians concurrently: Sri Ramanuja of the Srivaisnava Hindu tradition and Friedrich Schleiermacher of the Reformed Christian tradition. I studied Sri Ramanuja with Francis X. Clooney, SJ, then of Boston College, now of Harvard Divinity School and current director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard. I studied Schleiermacher with Michael Himes and Charles Hefling of Boston College. Ramanuja and Schleiermacher in themselves, without reference to the other, are rigorous, original, profound thinkers, worthy of disciplined attention. Both adapt tradition to changed circumstances without sacrificing the substance and beauty of tradition. Both present comprehensive, coherent theologies that thoroughly correspond to their own designated sources. And both theologians had and have a tremendous impact in the history of Hindu and Christian theology, respectively. For these reasons, study of either theologian is warranted and fruitful. Ramanuja and Schleiermacher are classics, insofar as each communicates a surplus of meaning. And the encounter of the human mind with a classic can be, at its best, a transformative experience.

But as that semester progressed and I meditated and brooded over the work of these two theologians, I increasingly noticed a striking aspect of my study. While both Ramanuja and Schleiermacher were instructive in themselves, my most productive insights into their theologies seemed to arise from comparison of both rather than solitary consideration of either. That is, I learned more from Ramanuja in relation to Schleiermacher than I did from Ramanuja alone, and I learned more from Schleiermacher in relation to Ramanuja than I did from Schleiermacher alone. Strangely, and almost mysteriously, as rigorously comprehensive as each theologian was, each became more in relation to the other.

Over the next several years I completed my coursework and comprehensive examinations and shelved my books by Ramanuja and Schleiermacher. But even as their books remained closed their influence persisted. Often, I asked myself how Ramanuja or Schleiermacher would address this question, or by what means they might reconcile this tension. And I always returned to the powerful way in which each in-formed the other. Sometimes, they debated with one another in my mind. Eventually, I resolved to better understand each theologian. But perhaps more importantly, I resolved to better understand the phenomenon of comparison that had occurred and was occurring in my education. Comparison was fruitful, but I didn’t know why.

I was raised in the Presbyterian tradition, so I shared a common Calvinist heritage with Schleiermacher, who nevertheless wrote for the combined Calvinist and Lutheran traditions of the Prussian Union Church. My shared Calvinist heritage with Schleiermacher, and the transformation of my understanding of him through study of Ramanuja, caused me to ask the question: To what degree could Ramanuja change my understanding of my own tradition? Or even more pressingly, to what degree could Ramanuja change my understanding of myself? And by exactly what means does this transformation occur?

The essay that follows is an attempt to replicate and reflect upon my comparative theological experience in the fall of 2003. It will delineate the salient similarities and differences between Ramanuja and Schleiermacher on one shared theme—the doctrine of absolute dependence. The study will address where they agree, where they disagree, and why. This essay is not an attempt to juxtapose two theologians and marvel at their (often remarkable) similarities, despite their vast separation in space and time. It is not an attempt to prove a fundamental, universal human metaphysic through the similarities between these two theologians. Nor is it an attempt to establish their resonances as dependent upon a shared Indo-European culturolinguistic heritage. Such a perhaps legitimate endeavor is best left to historians of religion. This essay is most certainly not an attempt to establish the superiority of Schleiermacher to Ramanuja, or of Christianity to Hinduism.

Instead, this essay will attempt to establish the fundamental interdependence, as a constructed opportunity, of two theologians through asserting that each is better understood in light of the other. By way of consequence, we will conclude that any constructive theology executed in the tradition of either theologian is better executed comparatively. Perhaps even more consequentially, we will conclude that religions think better when they think in community rather than isolation.

Texts

The approach utilized here will be primarily textual. It will compare three of Ramanuja’s works—Vedarthasamgraha, Sri Bhasya, and Gita Bhasya—with Schleiermacher’s Der christliche Glaube. The three texts by Ramanuja are chosen for several reasons. First, they are undisputed in authorship. While disagreement persists among Western scholars as to the authorship of Ramanuja’s nine works, there is near-universal agreement that he authored the three texts in question. (Srivaisnavas themselves accept Ramanuja’s authorship of all nine works.) Second, the three texts are theological in nature. The Vedarthasamgraha presents all of Ramanuja’s thought in concise, systematic detail. The Sri Bhasya is a commentary on the Brahma-Sutras of Badarayana, which summarize the teachings of the Upanisads. And the Gita Bhasya is a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. (Due to Vedanta’s elevated doctrine of scripture, much Vedantic theology is exegetical theology.) The three texts selected—the Vedarthasamgraha, Sri Bhasya, and Gita Bhasya—roughly equal Schleiermacher’s tome in length and content.

Each text by Ramanuja bears some introduction. The Vedartha-samgraha is oft-considered to be Ramanuja’s earliest work (it is referred to several times in the Sri Bhasya). As an offering to Srinivasa of Tirupati, a representation of Visnu, it is both an act of worship and theological masterpiece.3 Vedarthasamgraha means “summary of the meaning of the Veda.” The term “Veda” can have two references in the Hindu tradition. First, it can refer to the Veda proper, which is that portion of Hindu scripture concerned with the preservation of the cosmos through ritual worship. However, Ramanuja is certainly using a more expansive meaning of Veda, inclusive of all the most authoritative Hindu scripture, or sruti (“that which is heard”).4

Indeed, when Ramanuja uses the term “Veda,” he is most often referring to the Upanisads, a collection of religious poetry that is primarily concerned with knowledge of the Supreme rather than ritual proprieties. The Upanisads generally address the relationship between Brahman and Atman. They ambiguously and paradoxically assert the identity of the two. Due to their use of ambiguity and paradox the Upanisads allow multiple legitimate interpretations. They are considered to be the last portion of the Veda, when the Veda is more expansively conceived. They, along with the Bhagavad-Gita and Brahma-Sutras, compose the prasthana-traya (“triple canon” or “triple foundation”) of Vedanta.

Although the Vedarthasamgraha is a summary of the meaning of the Veda (for Vedanta, primarily the Upanisads), it is not a commentary on them. Therefore, Ramanuja’s format is not constrained by any scriptural format, granting him more freedom in structuring his argument. For that reason, of Ramanuja’s works it is most similar to Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre. (The term Glaubenslehre, German for “faith-doctrine” (doctrina fidei), is often used to refer to Schleiermacher’s Der christliche Glaube.) Although the Vedarthasamgraha is not a commentary, it nevertheless shares a style similar to Ramanuja’s other theological writings, since it remains a highly exegetical work rife with scriptural citations.5

The Sri Bhasya is Ramanuja’s longest and most influential work. It is a commentary on the Vedanta Sutras (also known as the Brahma Sutras), which are a summary of the Upanisads, claiming to capture and communicate their essence. The Vedanta Sutras consist of brief, cryptic aphorisms that can easily be memorized. Their brevity allows for commentarial expansion. In adopting this project, Ramanuja once again found himself in the wake of the enormously influential Sankara, whose transtheistic interpretation of the Vedanta Sutras had gained tremendous influence by the time Ramanuja began to propagate his theistic Vedanta. Because Ramanuja himself believed the Upanisads to be authoritative scripture and the Sutras to authentically summarize the Upanisads, the necessity of providing an alternative, theistic, Srivaisnava interpretation was pressing. In effect, to comment on the Sutras was to provide a comprehensive commentary on ultimate reality itself. Ramanuja succeeded in doing so, partly by engaging in direct polemics with Sankara’s Advaita Vedanta tradition. He argued that the path of knowledge (jnana marga) is insufficient to salvation, for it must be actualized by devotion (bhakti marga), which is enhanced through ritual activity (karma marga). Therefore, all Vedantin margas (paths to salvation) are components of one practice, which is ultimately salvific by grace.6

The Gita Bhasya is Ramanuja’s second longest work. S. S. Raghavachar speculates that it was written after the Vedarthasamgraha and Sri Bhasya.7 Carman agrees that it is probably the last major work of Ramanuja, representing some of his most mature reflection. While the aphorisms of the Sri Bhasya allowed for more free exegesis on Ramanuja’s part, the more detailed text of the Bhagavad Gita often restricted Ramanuja to paraphrase and amplification. Doctrinally, the Gita Bhasya is strikingly similar to the Vedarthasamgraha and Sri Bhasya. At the same time, it is highly dependent on the Gitarthasamgraha of Yamuna, Ramanuja’s predecessor in the Srivaisnava movement. Its central theological themes include the assertion that jnana yoga and karma yoga serve only as preparatory stages to bhakti yoga, 8 since they can at best result in the contemplation of the atman. Bhakti yoga, on the other hand, serves as the effective means by wh...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Ramanuja and Schleiermacher
• Chapter 2: “Absolute Dependence”
• Chapter 3: That Upon Which We Are Dependent
• Chapter 4: That Which Is Dependent: Cosmology
• Chapter 5: That Which Is Dependent: Anthropology
• Chapter 6: Toward a Constructive Comparative Theology
• Bibliography